20/02/2006
BAFTAs reaction
Well, it's been a pretty good selection this year, actually - Reese
Witherspoon won for Walk the Line, which was unexpected (she's very
good in it), and the Wallace and Gromit film won Best British Film
(yay!). Brokeback Mountain swept it (I still haven't seen it),
which I suppose was expected.
Oscar
predictions? I haven't seen Crash and Capote isn't out
yet, but I suspect Brokeback will take Best Picture too (the
BAFTAs and AMPAS membership overlap considerably.) Munich is the
best film out of the list I've seen. Witherspoon should get Best
Actress, W&G should get best animated (but I wouldn't mind if Miyazaki
got it either) and Robert Altman should have got his Oscar a long time
back, but at least gets an honorary one. Looks to be a pretty boring
year - too few choices.
And, in non-movie related news... Andy
Murray won his first ATP Tour title. Against Lleyton Hewitt. 2-6,
6-1, 7-6. Having beaten Andy Roddick already. Damn, he's getting
better quickly, isn't he?
|
12/02/2006
"US to emulate Eurovision contest"
What the
hell are they thinking? Eurovision is naff, and naffness can
only be made tenable by a serious irony injection (which is why Terry
Wogan is the only guy alive who can host the thing without making it
unbearable.) Most of the rest of Europe hasn't discovered pop-cultural
irony yet - see the popularity of hair-rock bands in most of the Eastern
Bloc - which is why they can stand it. We can stand it because we have
Wogan, and as a nation we like pop-cultural irony. The US, on the
other hand, is an odd case; TV producers love pop-cultural irony
but think that the audience are too dumb to take the real thing, so
generally oversugar and seriously mess it up. It will be a disaster.
Oh, and file this under 'unlikely': Pete
Doherty vows to stay 'drugs-free'. Like the last ten times, I
suppose...
|
04/02/2006
Just seen the Massive Attack video
...holy shit, it's good. The song's back in Protection territory
and the video (a Jonathan Glazer special) is beautiful in its shocking
simplicity. See it. Love it. Buy the single in March, and maybe we can
get something decent up the Top 10.
Now, about that album...
|
03/02/2006
IT Crowd
Looks really awful from the trailers, mainly because of Richard Ayoade.
So, how's the programme itself?
It's actually pretty good. It's a trad sitcom, shot on video with a
laugh track, which is also really good news - I loathe the
Green-Wing/Nighty-Night/Office style sitcoms that feel that just because
they're 'modern' means they don't have to be funny and seem to be
absolutely everywhere on TV right now. The writing, as we would expect
from Graham Linehan, is very sparky; Richard Ayoade is still awful, but
looks like he may well become more funny as the series goes on
(certainly, he seems to improve between episode 1, where he's
tooth-grindingly bad, and episode 2, where at least one of his lines
works). The set designers have done their homework (EFF stickers, Texas
Chainsaw Massacre poster, RTFM T-shirt), and the attention to detail
is really quite likeable. And, most importantly, it's funny.
The second episode is much better than the first, by the way, so do
stick with it. If you don't, Channel Four will recommission 'Balls of
Steel'. Please, think of your sanity.
|
02/02/2006
Scumbags united
"I hate Illinois Nazis!"
[Jake Blues, "The Blues Brothers" (1980).]
Following that line, the Blues Brothers drive their car directly through
a crowd of heiling Nazis, scattering them into the river, completely
destroying their master-race image and making them look as ridiculous as
they really, underneath the swastikas, are.
Sadly, a
similar fate did not befall Nick Griffin today, and it's a shame.
This, not jail, is what he and his crowd of tinpot hatemongers really
deserve - full, humiliating, public embarassment.
It's interesting to contrast this with the current furore over the
Prophet Muhammed cartoons - made by a Danish newspaper specifically to
piss people off in about September last year, riled up by a few Internet
tossers as a 'freedom of speech against those Ay-rabs' issue, now so
successful in doing so it's destabilising the European role in the
Israel/Palestine peace process. Both the cartoons and Griffin's BNP are
at the harsh edges of freedom of speech - they may cause great, great
harm by being there.
As a small-l liberal, I have to consider freedom of speech to be one of
the values I hold most dear. People like the BNP do not make this easy.
I note, with some irony, that they don't want us to have our
freedom of speech - they're
involved in the current will-not-die iteration of the Jerry Springer:
The Opera saga. At the same time, I have to concede that while
Muslims do have genuine grievances over the cartoons - the one with the
turban bomb is truly appalling racism - their leaders really shouldn't
be trying to make it a nuclear issue; although the normal boycotts,
complaints, protests etc are absolutely fine if done in a legal and
proper way. It's not like Jerry, where the complaints were
unjustified and the protesters scummy - this is a much more even affair.
Anyway, on the Mohammed cartoon stuff, Bloggerheads
and Chicken
Yoghurt are both very good. Oh, and considering that Mark
Collett - Griffin's co-defendant - has admitted being involved with
Redwatch, the British Nazi version of a animal-rights/anti-abortion
style 'post the addresses and knock them off' hitlist (in both Secret
Agent and, istr, in the 2002-ish 'Young, Nazi and Proud' Channel
Four film) shouldn't he be in jail instead of praising himself as a
"victor" for "freedom of speech"? Only in a just world, I think.
|
04/10/2005
R.I.P. Ronnie Barker
The Navy Lark, Porridge, The Two Ronnies, Open
All Hours...
Life's
unfair, isn't it?
|
11/08/2005
On regional differences
Currently, BBC2 in England is showing the World Athletics Championships;
an event which only takes place once every two years, where all the
world's best athletes (plus the Brits) race against each other to find
the best there is and which is one of the few sporting events I actually
care about wanting to see.
BBC2 in Scotland, on the other hand, is showing an aimless, irrelevant
second-round UEFA Cup tie between MyPa 47 of Finland and Dundee United.
YOU DON'T DO THAT. Especially when people with analogue terrestrial
therefore can't watch the WACs; this therefore restricts the athletics
to Sky or NTL, both of which allow viewers to watch real BBC2 on
an alternate channel and both of which cost an awful lot of money.
Telewest, my cable provider, don't do this; I'm lucky, however, because
they've kept the red-button interactive athletics running, so at least I
can watch it on that. Quite a lot of people can't do this, and they
shouldn't have to.
On the other hand, BBC Scotland are pretty much a what-not-to-do
station: there's chopping off the last twenty minutes of Newsnight
for obsequiously awful interviews with MSPs (with, again, no alternative
for anyone without real BBC2), there's their truly crappy 'home-grown'
comedy, there's the useless Reporting Scotland (which seems more
interested in reporting Glasgow), there's moving Have I Got News For
You to 10:35 so they can fit in their 'comedy' and River City,
possibly the worst soap ever, and so on. Just because we actually choose
to live up here doesn't mean you have to punish us...
|
07/07/2005
I really can't think of anything to say at this point
...
...
...
...
...
My
condolences to the people of London.
|
06/07/2005
Idiots at large, G8 conference edition
DISCLAIMER: Inquisitor is an Edinburgh resident, most of the
time. He also knows people who know members of Lothian and Borders
Police force, and people who work for Standard Life and other large
financial organisations. Hence you can discount opinions at will, but
they're genuinely held by me. Promise.
CAUTION: Very strong language. Don't say I didn't warn you.
You may have seen pictures of anti-capitalist idiots going about
Edinburgh city centre on Monday afternoon and evening like they owned
the place, and if you haven't they're here
(decent report here).
If you really want your blood to boil, read some
of the reports on Indymedia; a classic case of "We didn't do it, it
must have been...those guys!" (and, indeed, "Sure, we did it, but they
were worse!") if I ever saw one. IMC is useful for finding out their
point of view; it isn't so independent when it comes to our
point of view.
Now, I dislike unfettered global capitalism as much as anyone, but did
you fuckwits really have to rip up Princes Street Gardens? You
don't pay for that, but we do, and Edinburgh City Council will take any
excuse to hike council tax - thus hurting the poor people you claim to
be supporting. If you want to protest against the corporations that run
our society, why not do it without destroying anything? Sure, it takes
time, but that's life. And if you're going to throw memorial park
benches at riot cops (and, as one IMC poster points out, random
non-'black bloc' protesters), why not realise that they're going to get
annoyed enough to push back? You provoked them (and you did provoke
them, let's face it), so you take the consequences; your freedom of
speech, and your freedom of movement, exists only as long as it doesn't
impose on ours, and that's exactly as it should be.
I want the end of poverty too, I want to see a more equitable global
system than the one we have. And you know that in the future, no-one
will remember Saturday's peaceful rally, with 200,000 people from the
local area and around Britain in support of this view; no, they'll
remember 200 'black bloc' assholes, mostly from down south, Italy and
Spain, throwing memorial park benches at riot cops for no discernible
reason. In twelve hours, they've possibly wrecked all the Make Poverty
History campaign has managed to do in twelve months; but wow, you
smashed in a McDonalds window. Thanks a fucking lot.
[And I note that the comments to the IMC article suggests that the
anarchists could be regrouping around lines such as the "Animal Libbers"
- their words - that protest Huntingdon Life Sciences; they may be
successful, but guys who firebomb
other people's homes indiscriminately don't exactly hold the moral
high ground, do they?]
As it happens, I agree with the "Selfish Bastards" comment on this
IMC article. Since I actually live around that part of Edinburgh, I
will be very upset if these selfish anarchist bastards stop my
freedom of movement tomorrow; very upset indeed. Can you really blame me?
|
03/07/2005
Live 8 blogging #8: No postmortem yet
That'll wait until the end of the G8 conference. There is really nothing
more you can say about it until we see whether or not it'll have any
effect whatsoever. Apart from saying, of course, that Pink Floyd should
tour as a matter of urgency...
The Americans, whose only TV source of Live 8 was MTV (get off the
air!) are somewhat
annoyed because they went straight to a commercial break in the
middle of "Comfortably Numb". I don't blame them at all. Quite, quite
sad...
It is also notable that the US and Canadian legs were the only legs with
less watchable (but much more popular) bands than at Hyde Park, although
that's soon to be topped by the Murrayfield leg - the best we've got is
the Proclaimers, and that really does say it all. Worse, we've got a
Bedingfield; even worse, it's Natasha. A disaster in the making?
|
02/07/2005
Live 8 blogging #7: I'm speechless...
THEY STILL HAVE IT.
They're practically pensioners, they haven't played together since 1981,
the non-Roger section hasn't played the songs since 1994, and THEY STILL
HAVE IT.
And Roger and Dave hugged at the end; which, considering their history,
is really quite something.
Well, Paul McCartney was and always will be a Beatle, but he's going to
have to try really really hard to top that... why couldn't they have had
an hour, Bob?
Thankfully, VHS will preserve this moment at least for a few years. I
may be remembering it for a lot longer. Please, God, let them tour...
|
Live 8 blogging #6: FLOYD ARE NEXT!!! NEXT!!! NEXT!!!!!!
And the Who were surprisingly OK.
Don't look away...
|
Live 8 blogging #5: Added a white band now
entry posted by Inquisitor at 21:19
(permalink).
edited on: 02/07/2005 21:23.
categories: Music
, TV
Somewhat late in doing it, but...
Velvet Revolver. Umm. Not nearly as bad as they could have been,
but just so unmemorable.
Next up: Sting. Followed by Mariah, doing various awful recent tracks,
and then the unassailable Robbie (no matter how much you try).
Post-Robbie, the fun begins: Who, Floyd, and McCartney...
...and ooh, Message in a Bottle sounds really good, actually. How
odd. If he keeps playing Police songs, we'll be fine...
|
Live 8 blogging #4: Nice stunt, Bob.
Also, it gave you a good excuse to wheel out the Cars video again, even
if it was just to end up as a link into Madonna.
We can go on all day about the morality of Live 8, but I won't; I'll
leave that up to the rest of you (it's notable that this is splitting
the UK lefty blogosphere down the middle). All I can say is that I hope
it'll do some good, which is all that can be done; cynicism or no, you
have to have some hope.
And coming up: Snow Patrol, the Killers, Joss Stone, Scissor Sisters and
(barf) Velvet Revolver. By 9pm, I might well be well enough to start
blogging again, unless something else catches my eye.
|
Live 8 blogging #3: You knew it was going to happen...
I'm pretty sure I just heard Snoop Dogg let off the F-bomb at 6:30pm in
the evening on national TV. Worse for him, it was a MF-bomb, accompanied
by multiple other words that Ofcom don't take too much of a shine to.
The BBC really should have got in a ten-second delay and a beeper, for
his set if nothing else - especially since the Floyd are
definitely not going to replace the shit in "Money" for love nor.
6:40: And there's two definite MFs now! Wonder what Geldof's
going to have to say to Ofcom...
|
Live 8 blogging #2: Bollocks...
...Venus Williams won. I thought Lindsey Davenport deserved it for her
first two sets, and the way she was handling that all-out assault in the
third... Still, it's not that bad, at least Venus was playing extremely
well (from the second set tie-break onwards), so congratulations to her.
The problem with Live 8, musically, is that all the interesting acts
aren't doing the British concert. Pet Shop Boys are in Russia, Bjork was
in Japan, the Cure and Muse are in Paris, Brian Wilson and Roxy Music (avec
Eno) are in Berlin. There is good news, though; Duran Duran are in
Italy. The London gig has Paul McCartney and the Floyd, but
that's about it. It may make for good ratings to have several hundred
Coldplays and Robbies, but it turns me off and I'm sure it turns others
off too.
And I mean, come on, UB40? For crying out loud. (I didn't even
know they were still going...)
More blogging for the Floyd. And maybe even before.
|
Live 8 blogging #1: Pete Doherty wrecks T-Rex shock
[Inquisitor is blogging Live 8 from the perspective of an Edinburgh
citizen watching TV, unable to post important letters because the Post
Office has blocked up his nearest post box and is closing for a local
holiday on Monday. So sit back and enjoy!]
Elton John just described Pete Doherty as a "young talent". One of these
words is wrong, and if you know who Pete Doherty is it's not too hard to
work out which one.
Pete Doherty really does look rather ill, doesn't he? And his stage
antics are somewhat... stale. Has he gone back on the drugs again? It's
a surprise he's even managed to turn up on time...
Anyway, back to Wimbledon: it's
all shit for the next hour, until REM come on (and even then, that's
only because they're doing The One I Love). After that, it's all
shit until Travis come on, and that's only because they're apparently
going to do a version of I Don't Like Mondays with the
Bob-meister himself - this could be the funniest thing since their cover
of Baby One More Time, and I've got the VCR ready for it.
Other highlights: Snoop Dogg (dear God, I hope he swears profusely, it
wouldn't be a live concert event without it), Sting doing Every
Breath You Take for the first time in several years, Paul McCartney,
and the Floyd.Oh, yes, the Floyd. There is no way in hell
I am missing the Floyd, and neither should you. (Besides, the
two-person Who before it could be... interesting.) See you later...
|
05/06/2005
There's bad news and good news...
Bad news: Richard Whiteley is having to take several months off Countdown
because of his pneumonia.
Good news: one of the guest presenters is apparently going to be Stephen
Fry. That's going to be unmissable.
For those of you unfamiliar with Countdown, it's possibly one of
the strangest long-running programmes on British TV. Wikipedia
has a decent article. It's one of those programmes that just shouldn't
work - it is run at a completely sedentary pace, by rights the games
should be mind-numbingly boring, most of the airtime is taken up by
Richard Whiteley's godawful puns, the prizes are legendarily poor and
there are Stannah Stairlift adverts in the commercial breaks. And yet it
does: it is one of the last survivors of the classic British game shows,
those where what counts is the competition rather than the prize money
(Countdown doesn't even have prize money), and it survives
because it just works. Everything from the bad jokes to Carol
Vorderman actually makes sense when put together - in a way they
wouldn't separately.
It does help that the game format is extremely simple, yet so hard to do
well - it allows everyone to join in, attempting to one-up each other,
and even the contestants on screen. And because it's so universal, even
the contestants are interesting; recently, an eight-year-old boy managed
to win two episodes, for example, even getting nine-letter words and the
Conundrum. It's fantastic that at least one old-style game show survives
to this day; I much prefer a game show which is actually about
intellectual challenge to something like the Weakest Link where
getting the questions right is actively discouraged, for example. And
it, University Challenge and Mastermind are the last
examples of their kind - shame, isn't it?
|
20/05/2005
On the occasion of seeing several hundred too many Jamster adverts on TV...
Once a day is too much. Twice every ad break on every single commercial
channel is taking the piss. I watch TV with sound piped through my
hi-fi, and it doesn't have a remote control; as a result, and also
because I don't own a PVR yet, I have to rapid-switch the channel when
the frog and friends come on. Unfortunately my TV provider is Telewest
Broadband so it takes about five seconds to get to a safe haven like,
say, News 24. Five seconds of frog to suffer through is five seconds too
much, and with the BBC strike on Monday almost certain to trigger a N24
shutdown I have a feeling I may well be about to go insane.
ITV have had 600 complaints since they started striprunning Crazy Frog
every...single...ad-break...twice, but they won't willingly give up a
source of revenue just because real viewers are pissed off about it
(only the BARB raters count, although at least they're not watching Celebrity
Wrestling either). And the ASA, which has real power, won't listen
to Crazy Frog complaints about their frequency, which is supposedly up
to the broadcaster; and they rejected these months before they
did the ITV deal and started pushing it harder than an American crack
dealer. So complain, complain, complain to OFCOM, with a quickie dropped
into the ASA about the outrageous £3-a-month small-print scam they're
pulling (earning them millions.)
And if you want to hurt them financially, don't buy a tone from them,
complain at every opportunity, switch your domains away from Network
Solutions (Jamster is part of the Verisign
family), and don't buy your digital certificates from
Verisign/Thawte (two sides of the same coin). Make sure to let them
know...
|
14/05/2005
Election 2005 - post-mortem
I did, in fact, stay up for the election. Instead of blogging, however,
I was on the #ukbloggers IRC channel gratefully hosted by Nick
Barlow, qwghlm.co.uk and
others, for whom I'm extremely grateful.
So, it's a third term and another big but more controllable majority for
Tony Blair. Not really a surprise; a surprise would have been if Howard
got in. Not very many surprises on the night, in fact; the only biggies
were that George Galloway somehow got back into Parliament (I'm not a
fan) and the fact that the Lib Dems made as few gains on Labour as they
did, despite having a very large percentage of the vote. And,
unfortunately, Blunkett's back in the Cabinet; ironically overseeing
Child Support; even worse, Blair replaced Geoff Hoon with one of the
only less suitable men in Parliament, the indescribable John Reid, and
Ruth Kelly's still there. My MP, Alistair Darling, got relected with a
reduced majority. Such is life.
The fact that Labour got a majority of 68 on only 37% of the vote means,
of course, that we need a much more proportional electoral system than
we have now; something Jack
'master of doublespeak' Straw doesn't seem to be able to comprehend
(link courtesy Nick
Barlow) in an article so godawful I'm surprised the Guardian
even agreed to print it. Nick makes the argument about as well as I
would, pointing out the 1997 manifesto commitment to an electoral reform
referendum (swiftly forgotten post 170-majority) and the ignoring of the
Jenkins commission. We may well not see a decent voting system from this
government, and it's a real shame - FPTP should have been consigned to
the history books long, long ago.
And may I just extend my commiserations to Tim Ireland (of Bloggerheads
and Backing Blair fame),
who is about to suffer four-to-five years of Anne
Milton... shame, really.
|
04/05/2005
This really does say it all...
Jamster, the scumbags (do a search)
behind every other advert on UK digital TV, are
owned
by VeriSign.
This is appropriate, since VeriSign, just like the godawful characters they
advertise, are really bloody annoying... Also, it's not the first time
VeriSign's tried to con anyone with misleading T&Cs and hidden extras,
or tried to stop people from getting away from the service (something
which NetSol are notorious for). Shame, isn't it?
And, in case you're wondering who I'm voting for, the answer is 'Lib Dem'.
So blame me if the Tories get in in Edinburgh South West, I don't
care - they probably won't, though, considering how crap they are...
Since I'm going to attempt to stay up tomorrow evening, you may or
may not see Election Blog 2005. Hopefully.
|
05/03/2005
"Making Your Mind Up"
I'm watching BBC's reality-TV style Eurovision candidate show, Making
Your Mind Up, named after by far Britain's least subtle entry
to the ESC. Good things: Terry Wogan (you've got to love Wogan) and
Jonathan Ross, who is slagging off almost everything without care for
the consequences. Bad things: everything else, especially Gina
G (who was crap the first time) and Jordan/Katie Price, who really
shouldn't be doing this.
Song 1: Javine, ex out of Pop Rivals (kicked out of Girls
Aloud, controversially, in the knockout stages). Sounds like last year's
Eurovision winner, so quite frankly I'm all for it; Britain needs a
chance. Popjustice are gunning
for Javine and I may well end up going with them; you can vote online
(from 6:35pm), tee hee.
Song 2: Tricolore's "Brand New Day" (a G4-ish 'popera' hybrid)
has almost certainly the worst Eurovision candidate lyric for years:
If we could see the world through the eyes of a child
> We'd see
the dawn of a brand new day
Jonathan Ross is right about this one - as a ripoff of the Lion King
music - so of course is getting pasted by the audience. Hmm.
Song 3: Gina G. Flashback to the music. Rewind to 1996. Generic
Pop Song with nothing adventurous going on at all. So of course it will
do well.
Now they're going around Britain a la the real ESC to show
televote verdicts. I like Eurovision. I'm not sure I like this, though...
Song 4: Another ex-reality TV 'star', Andy Scott-Lee, relative
to Z-list celebrity Lisa. The problem with this song is basically that
it's a Westlife song, and there's nothing I hate more. It's a truly
horrible one too.
Song 5: "Jordan, aka Katie Price, or the other way round." Why
exactly is a six months pregnant, ex-Page 3 model, I'm A Non-Entity,
Get Me Into Here! 'star' doing entering a contest which she
probably won't be able to fly to? Surely she wouldn't be sick enough to
get an early Caesarean in order to go out there? Worse, the song's awful
- it comes from the same Generic Pop Song place as the Gina G song,
although is slightly catchier and much worse produced. Jonathan Ross is
claiming it's the best song, but this may be just because her dancers
rip off Fischerspooner's one-step clothes removal technique (she
doesn't, fortunately.)
To vote, send an email to eurovision@bbc.co.uk with the heading and text
reading 'SONG 1', 'SONG 2' etc. I recommend SONG
1, if only as the least worst option (why is it that no-one decent
ever tries entering?) Vote closes at 7:30pm, so get going.
|
21/01/2005
Idiots Of The Week #2: BBC Reporting Scotland, Luke Mitchell
(Yes, a running series! And why not? Gives me a reason to write.)
Those of you who don't live in Scotland may not be familiar with the
Jodie
Jones murder case, not having had it hammered into their heads over
the last three months, so I'll refresh your memories. A couple of years
ago, the said Jodie Jones (a 14-year old teenager from the Easthouses
council estate, an area of Edinburgh I know fairly well) ended
up missing after going out to meet her boyfriend, a neddish
scumbag by the name of Luke Mitchell. Later on, the body ends up being
discovered just off her route to Mitchell's house, Mitchell made an
absolute ass of himself both at the funeral and on Sky News, and the
police process the information.
Of course, as it turns out, she did meet her boyfriend... (at least
according to majority verdict.)
The Scottish media
have not exactly been forward with their tact - all the
newspapers had a shot of somewhat childish glee at revealing that Mitchell
was the one charged with the murder pretty much the second he turned
16 - and they're even less likely to gain it now. It has been like
this throughout the long, sordid, endless trial - every single night
on Reporting Scotland we got a trial update, despite the fact that
the evidence was always the bloody same. Just think of what the
front pages are going to be like tomorrow...
And bad things are going to happen because of this; in fact, the trailer
for Up Next on Reporting Scotland is what triggered me
to write this. Because Jodie was one of the supposed subculture who
call themselves 'goths' and consider themselves to be 'individual',
and Mitchell claimed
to be too, the media has found a Blame Target. And it's the same blame
target as the US media found after Columbine - Marilyn Manson. As they
just said: "Did the music of the rock star Marilyn Manson really
influence the killer's actions?"
Well, let's see...
A) MM's painting of the Black Dahlia murders, shown on his website, isn't
exactly unique to the genre. No-one's even proved to me that Mitchell
even visited the website...
B) As the BBC Scotland article I linked to just above admits, but Reporting
Scotland doesn't seem to be, Mitchell bought the Golden
Age Of Grotesque album-with-free-DVD featuring images vaguely like said
murder two days after Jodie was murdered. Oops.
("This DVD may explain how he
became...a cold-blooded killer" says the idiot reporter, right now. DO
THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ THEIR
OWN REPORTS?)
C) As anyone who's actually listened to his music knows, Marilyn Manson
is taking the piss. If there is a message in his music, it's "don't
trust other people's bullshit", which is an excellent message and one
I approve of highly, especially in the case of Reporting Scotland.
The trappings around him? It's just theatrics. Look at his appearance
in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine,
for instance - "I wouldn't say anything to them. I'd just listen... because no-one else
did." The guy understands. He's just the new Alice Cooper, designed to piss
off your parents, so lay off him.
D) There is much, much worse out there than Marilyn Manson - and I suspect
Luke Mitchell may in fact known about some of it, or at least read
about it. But of course, MM's name is recognisable while most of the really seamy
end of the music scale isn't, so that's what gets in the media.
E) It's quite possible that angry music like MM's might actually help people
get over their rage against the society they feel mistreats them -
the whole 'punch in the air' thing. Radiohead and New Order did it
for me, but hey, everybody's different.
So the answer to the question is, of course, no. MM
is merely a symptom, as is Mitchell's self-professed 'Satanism'. Mitchell
is clearly a screwed-up character; the Satanism crap and attachment
to the weird end of the Gothic bandwagon is obviously a cover for real
psychological problems, none of which will be solved by sending him
to jail forever.
(My own suspicion? Jodie found about about his side
girlfriend, and he flipped out on her. Full
stop. And as Larkin said, 'they fuck
you up, your mum and dad', and Luke Mitchell's amoral, uncaring, truly
vile mother definitely fits the bill.)
The big problem is that this will cause a backlash, just like Columbine
caused a backlash, against anyone who doesn't fit in. Just when you
thought it couldn't get much worse for people who aren't 'normal' in
school, something like this happens and you know it's going to. Wear
black? Listen to Marilyn Manson? Use the Internet, not just for
MSN? Be a bit 'weird'? We'll keep an eye on
you! Never mind that you may have no intention of killing or hurting
anyone - like most fans, in fact, of Marilyn Manson, all of whom take
pride in being a 'rebel against conformity' by buying his albums en
masse - you're marked! Even those with problems (and most MM fans are
well adjusted members of society) only really need a little understanding;
but, by God, we'll give them punishment!
This is, of course, something that will create more problems than it solves
- because, of course, if the supposed 'goths' genuinely are persecuted,
they may develop complexes like Mitchell's about it and we'll get a
Scottish Columbine (with school layouts the way they are, it's very possible
- a big enough knife and/or the right bits of the Anarchist's Cookbook and
it'll take Armed Response to stop it), the media will blame it on Marilyn
Manson and/or the Internet and the entire thing will full circle again.
It's a horrifying prospect, and one that could very well be happening,
in Britain, right now. Isn't that scary?
[In fact, isn't the possibility of blaming it on the Net why the pigs scoured
the Mitchells' computers, discovering as a sideline that Luke's brother
was viewing porno at the time of the murder? I suppose when they found
that out at least some of the feeling was that of a missed opportunity...]
The best thing I can say is: the case is extremely abnormal, and can be
simply explained in two words. We shouldn't make it
normal, but our media looks like it's going to keep trying...
[I might as well, also, do this fine
Googlebomb for
Manic: we're all talking about the White House's
empty rhetoric. After
all, the ignorant bigots one was successful, so why not give this one a go? It's for a good cause.]
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09/01/2005
Idiots Of The Week: National Rail Enquiries, Celtic 'fans' and more
Me: I hate National Rail Enquiries.
Ticket seller: Oh, we do too.
--- Verbatim conversation at a ticket office, somewhere in
Scotland, yesterday
So I've spent Christmas and New Year with my family, as you do, distributed
hauls of R3 copies of Hero,
The Bourne Supremacy etc. to my very pleased brothers, and the
university term looms. I decide, because of commitments, to stay up north
for as long a period as possible and head back on Saturday the 8th, i.e.
yesterday.
As the weather's
been kinda bad lately, I check up on First
ScotRail's site about an hour before the train's meant to come in. This advises me that due
to the weather situation, to only travel if necessary (my new term
starts tomorrow) and to call 08457 48 49 50 for further information,
not mentioning what the line actually is. I call it, and I get back
a "Thank you for calling National Rail Enquiries..."
NRE, after keeping me waiting for a fairly long time, tell me (after much
kerfuffle) that services on my line are suspended and a replacement
bus service is running. They cannot, of course, tell me whether the
bus service is even going to stop at my village railway station,
and I can't call either the terminus or Glasgow stations directly, so I end up
having to get lifted into town very quickly in order to catch said
replacement bus service.
Of course, NRE wasn't exactly telling the truth, since the line was open
for business and had been for some time. A big oops there.
Thankfully, the ticket inspector was understanding when he accepted
my ticket, technically invalid for the first part of the journey, after
I explained NRE's cockup.
Other railway people were rather understanding, too, as when I asked for
an address for which I could complain to them, and the ticket seller
at Queen Street could only get me a phone number (0191 269 0305, fact
fans...):
Ticket seller: "They're useless."
Which pretty much says it all.
NRE can get away with being absolutely useless because they're the
only way, now, that a consumer can get information about the British
railway network - the telephone numbers of local stations were made
ex-directory some years ago, so all you see in the Phone Book is NRE.
This is despite the fact that to man the phone lines at a rural terminus
doesn't actually preclude you from doing other jobs at the same time.
Of course, you need to have a fairly similar amount of staff employed
to update the NRE system whenever, say, something like an extreme weather
situation happens, since the people you actually speak to are dumb
automatons in a call centre somewhere, but this doesn't figure to the
bureaucrats and plutocrats that run the British railway network nowadays.
If I had been able to call my local station, I'd have been able to
pick up the train at the village station and I wouldn't have forgotten
to pick up some of the DVDs I left behind. Grr.
Also see: out-of-hours GP phone numbers redirecting you to NHS
Direct (or the Scottish version, NHS 24), a call-centre helpline run
by nurses; banks making you call India instead of your local branch;
etc. It's all the same thing; idiot cost-cutting that doesn't actually
help anyone.
Admittedly, none of this was actually the fault of First ScotRail; they're
supposed to refer everyone to NRE, since it's the only Official Source
of this information. What wasn't the fault of First ScotRail either
was the gang of supposed football 'fans' that got on at the last stop
and were really, really loud, although they didn't exactly distinguish
themselves by attempting to control the situation either. By really
loud, I'm meaning "drowning out the music playing on my in-ear headphones"
loud. They were drunk when they got on the train, drank a lot whilst
on the train, and made the last fifteen minutes of my journey seem
like time spent in the very depths of Hell. What's more, these were
'fans' of the depressingly boorish, pissed, fucked-up, sectarian (pretty
sure I heard an IRA reference), and amazingly racist type ("There ain't
no black on the Union Jack! Sieg Heil!") that demonises Scottish
football - and this was the day before the Old Firm game, let me remind you.
I almost wished my Rio Karma had a record function so I could have posted it here -
this really was the kind of thing you never, ever wish to see or hear.
I lived in a Rangers area for a long period of time, really really hated the sectarian
aspects of it, and not liking football wasn't a way out of it. I ended up holding back
for a long time after the train stopped until I was pretty sure the
supposed 'fans' had dispersed; this was sensible plan, so I recovered
with the aid of a cup of coffee and set off for Edinburgh much more
relieved.
And then I watched Jerry Springer: The Opera, or as it really is Jerry
Springer: The Musical. Which was really funny, by the way: pretty much from the first
pseudo-operatic aria ("chick with a dick") onward. It's also not
blasphemous at all: the appearance of the diaper-fetishist from previously as Jesus
(although not a diaper-fetishist Jesus) occurs simply because the whole 'Jesus vs.
Satan' thing is a hallucination created by Springer's mind before he ends up actually
dying, and the Virgin Mary herself doesn't sing the 'raped by an angel' line
(it's the chorus, shown to be orchestrated by Satan), unlike what some
of the media publicity would have had you believe. You can even take
the ending to be a Christian redemptive message, if you like. The thing had so many warnings
strewed on it - including Kirsty Wark before each act of the play, and BBC2 continuity -
that it was almost impossible to miss it.
Oh, and the swearing? All the seven (not 280, that's counting the chorus)
'cunt's in the show are directed at the guy in the Christian religion
to whom the term most deserves to be used - i.e., Satan - and in a
single song, and the 'fuck' count doesn't even reach that of, say, Goodfellas,
Reservoir Dogs or Casino (all shown uncut by Channel Four.)
Mediawatch should really employ someone's who's done at least,
say, GCSE Maths to see whether their figures are actually right.
All in all, a storm in a teacup, don't you think? And the BBC have got a
nice 1.7m viewer total out of it. Now, all we have to do is hope there
won't be a Whitehouse v. Gay News repeat (especially since the BBC
have more lawyers and money than Gay News did), with the so-called
Christian Voice's private prosecution, and things should be well...
Bloggerheads has a nice series
of articles on the neat little relationship between Mediawatch and
the Daily Mail, and the JS:TO 'controversy' in general, here,
here, here,
here,
and here;
Mail Watch has a good piece too,
here.
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